A trip down the rabbit hole of YouTube lead me to this gem. This was filmed around the time of my earlier visits to Switerland, before I started taking a serious interest in modelling the Lötchberg line and didn’t take detailed notes of the train formations. On later trips just after the turn of the century things were less varied, with EWiv push-pull sets on all but a handful of international through services. But back in 1990 it was a real mix; just look the very first train, with it’s mix of Swiss, Italian and Belgian coaching stock, and a rare BLS livery EWi restaurant car.

It’s notable just how few trains are uniform rakes; proof that you don’t need a full rake of anything to make up a realistic train. In particular the EWiv coaches were still being delivered, and the BLS didn’t have enough of them to make up complete rakes, hence the sets make up from a mix of EWiv and older EWi and EWii stock.

The other thing of note is the Re4/4Iv locomotives, which were operating over the Lötchberg at the time. Only four were ever built, and the class never went into series production. All four were eventually sold to the Südostbahn.

When I’m not running trains in British outline mode, the layout can represent a station somewhere along the Bern Lötchberg Simplon main line. The distinctive brown Re4/4 locomotives are a signature item of motive power for the line. For many years the only available version in N gauge was the very old and long discontiued Arnold model. I managed to acquire a few of these a decade or so ago. Although acceptable in it’s time they’re crude models compared with more recent releases from Fleischmann or Minitrix, and indeed fall well below current British outline models from Farish or Dapol.

Which is why a new model of this iconic locomotive is good news. It’s from Arnold again, now part of the Hornby group, and it’s an all-new retooled version rather than a reissue of the long in the tooth original model.

Needless to say I’ve gone and ordered one.